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Harry Channing

Mrs. Norton

AP Combined

May 22, 2017

Literary Analysis of Sorts

A great writer and poet, Thomas Hardy once said, "A story must be exceptional enough

to justify its telling; it must have something more unusual to relate than the ordinary experience

of every average man and woman." A story doesnt have to be more unusual than the ordinary

experience of every average man and woman to justify its telling, as proven by three great

works: John Steinbecks Of Mice and Men, Adeline Yen Mahs Chinese Cinderella: The True

Story of an Unwanted Daughter, and Mary Roachs Stiff: The Curious Lives of Human

Cadavers.

John Steinbecks Of Mice and Men is an award winning tale of two men, smart George

and handicapped Lennie, surviving in The Great Depression. John Steinbeck wrote, [Carlson]

continued to look down at the old dog. Candy watched him uneasily. At last Carlson said, If you

want me to, Ill put the old devil out of his misery right now and get it over with. Aint nothing

left for him. Cant eat, cant see, cant even walk without hurtin. At last Candy said softly

and hopelessly, 'Awrighttake im. He did not look down at the dog at all. In this scene,

Carlson and the other men convince Candy to let his dog be killed out of mercy. Similarly,

Steinbeck later writes,And George raised the gun and steadied it, and he brought the muzzle of

it close to the back of Lennies head. The hand shook violently, but his face set and his hand

steadied. He pulled the trigger. In this final scene of Of Mice and Men, George kills Lennie out
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of mercy. He was merciful, making sure Lennie wouldnt have to live a ruined life. This way of

making decisions persists throughout the novel, just as it does in the real world. Average people

are constantly faced with decisions like these, and many, like the characters in the book, would

choose mercy. The award winning, exceptional storytelling of Of Mice and Men, the story of two

men working to survive through The Great Depression is a composition of usual decisions that

average people have to make. Is this story not worth being told?

Adeline Yen Mahs Chinese Cinderella: The True Story of an Unwanted Daughter is an

autobiography about Adelines life of growing up in an unloving, unaccepting family. Adeline

wrote, I was winning the medal every week and wearing it constantly. I knew this displeased by

siblings, especially Big Sister and Second Brother, but it was the only way to make Father take

notice and be proud of me. This happens in kindergarten at the beginning of Adelines school

career. Adeline later wrote, But if I tried to be really good and studied very very hard, perhaps

things would become different one day, I would think. Meanwhile, I must not tell anyone how

bad it really was. I should just go to school every day and carry inside me this dreadful

loneliness, a secret I could never share. Otherwise, it would be over, and Father and Niang would

never come to love me. This is the story of a girl who struggles to get the approval of her father.

Everyone struggles with acceptance at some point in their lifetime. Many of those who feel

ostracized and unwanted follow the same decision path that Adeline followed, the path to try to

overcome that barrier, to force acceptance, even if it hurts many along that path. The exceptional

storytelling in Chinese Cinderella: the True Story of an Unwanted Daughter, the incredible true

story of an unwanted daughter struggling for the acceptance full of usual decisions that the

average person has to make. Is this story not worth being told?
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Mary Roachs Stiff: the Curious Lives of Human Cadavers is a book about the lives lead

by dead bodies, what they do, and how they are used. Roach writes, Here is the secret to

surviving one of these [airplane] crashes: Be male. In a 1970 Civil Aeromedical institute study of

three crashes involving emergency evacuations, the most prominent factor influencing survival

was gender (followed closely by proximity to exit). Adult males were by far the most likely to

get out alive. Why? Presumably because they pushed everyone else out of the way. This was

written as one of the footnotes in Chapter Five: When the bodies of the passengers must tell the

story of a crash. Afterwards, Roach wrote, Here's the other thing I think about. It makes little

sense to try to control what happens to your remains when you are no longer around to reap the

joys or benefits of that control. People who make elaborate requests concerning disposition of

their bodies are probably people who have trouble with the concept of not existing. [...] I imagine

it is a symptom of the fear, the dread, of being gone, of the refusal to accept that you no longer

control. She wrote this in the final chapter of the book, talking about what was to happen to her

body when she died. This is the story about death, dead bodies, and how people try to control

them. This is the story of deciding to be selfish or serve the greater good. Everyone, at some

point in their life, struggles with decisions about whether to help themselves or to help others. In

plane crashes, men push people out of the way to get to safety first , which may very well bring

about the demise of those that are pushed. Meanwhile, people decide not to donate their bodies to

science, a selfish decision to keep their bodies even though they are no longer in control of them.

Average people make these difficult decisions everyday, average people make selfish decisions

every day. The amazing, fascinating storytelling of Stiff: the Curious Lives of Human Cadavers,
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the true detailed story of Roachs research into the dead is made up of decisions that the average

person would have to make every day. Is this story not worth being told?

In conclusion, one doesnt have to write a story more unusual than the average

experience of a man or a woman to justify its telling. John Steinbeck, Adeline Yen Mah, and

Mary Roach each demonstrate this. The important decisions illustrated in each story, the

decisions about mercy, acceptance, and selfishness, depict how stories are about average people.

Are these prodigious works not worth being written as a result of their ordinariness?
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Works Cited

Mah, Adeline Yen. Chinese Cinderella: The True Story of an Unwanted Daughter. New York:

Delacorte, 1999. Kindle.

Roach, Mary. Stiff: The Curious Lives of Human Cadavers. New York: W.W. Norton, 2003.

Kindle.

Steinbeck, John. Of Mice and Men. New York: Penguin, 1993. Kindle.